Archives

Author: littlebitsofsarah

I am 100% positive that yesterday and today are the coldest day we have had since last winter aka today is the first day Joel and I have (reluctantly) had to use the heat in our apartment. All week, we had been anticipating a winter storm to come through late Friday night/early Saturday morning. The weather channel said we were expected to get about 3-4 inches of snow.

When we woke up yesterday morning and peaked out the window – all we seemed to have gotten was a whole bunch of freezing rain and ice. The brittle trees were all covered in icicles but there was no snow to be found. Not that I was very disappointed considering I am not a fan of the cold and/or snow.

We started our morning with a workout together. I am loving our new Saturday routine we have. With Joel’s job, he normally has work on the weekends but the last couple he has had off which has been great. We started the workout with a mile run warm up before completing an Upper Body Circuit. It was a great way to start the day (aka being lazy for the rest of the day).

We ran a few errands before relaxing on the couch to binge watch our latest Netflix obsession – How To Get Away With Murder.

We recently made a commitment to make a meal together one night a week (which typically falls on Saturday night). The combination of Joel’s job often has him working some nights + our different dietary preferences has led us to be on our own for dinners most nights. We are creatures of habit and typically eat most of the same foods everyday. So in an effort to change up our routine (and to teach Joel how to cook), we have made an agreement to cook something different/or eat out once a week. This sounds silly, but so far it has been great + has been a great date night for us every weekend.

Last weekend we made Lettuce Tacos! This weekend is breakfast for dinner. I could seriously eat breakfast foods and biscuits everyday, all day long if I let myself. On the menu for tonight is an egg white/spinach scramble (for me – I haven’t gotten Joel on the egg train yet), Applegate Chicken & Apple Sausage and PANCAKES!!!

I literally cannot remember the last time I had pancakes – it was honestly those pre-made frozen ones sometime in high school.

Joel was quite the pancake making pro.

Bet you can’t guess which plate is mine…

And cookies… because why not. My neighbor back home makes THE best chocolate chip cookies every holiday season. My mom was nice enough to send Joel and I a few of them in the mail this week. 🙂

I know I am not alone when I say that while I love the idea of dressing up and being trendy, comfort sometimes (always) out weighs that. This is especially true in the winter. During the colder months, I quickly slip into the funk of having no desire to wear normal clothing. I am always cold, so all I want to do is throw on leggings and a jacket and be on my way.

This brings me to a couple of things I have really been loving this fall/winter. First being, these Moto Leggings. While they are a bit more pricey than I would have liked to spend on a pair of leggings – I think they were a good investment. They feel little thicker than the average legging and the moto detailing on them makes them a bit more acceptable to wear than your average legging.

Second is my Vans Classic Sneaker Slip Ons. I am so glad all of these old school sneakers are making a come back (Vans, Adidas). I never wore Van’s when I was younger because they were mostly worn if you were rocking a “skater” style, which was not me. So with that being said, this purchase was a little out of my comfort zone. But I am so glad I am giving them a chance now a days. They are seriously SO comfortable and perfect to slip quickly – yet still look cute 🙂 Another plus, they come in a bajillion different colors.

I cannot believe it is already 2017! I feel like it was just yesterday that Joel and I were watching football, cuddled up on the couch with our pup bringing in 2016. I may just feel that way because it is exactly how we brought in 2017 the other night as well… creatures of habit, no?

2016 has been without a doubt one of the best years I have had to date. Here is why –

Joel moved to Atlanta! – After 4 years of long distance (8+ hours between the two of us), Joel and I finally are living in the same city. This hasn’t happened since my Junior year of high school and I am so excited about it. Joel graduated college back in May and packed up his few belongings (a trash bag of clothes) and moved in a few days after his final exams. It has been a learning experience for the both of us and we are still learning everyday – living with a boy, let alone another person is always a challenge. But through the troubles, have come LOTS of fun times and memories with my boy.

My job & the best of friends. You are probably thinking this is an odd combination and for most people, it is. – but I truly have met some of my best friends through my current job. I have been working for my company since August 2015, but transitioned into my current role back in March 2016. Through this, I have met some of my best friends. From birthday’s, brunches, concerts, happy hours, engagement parties, weddings – we have done it all this year. As for my job and beginning my career, I have learned so much about myself and am continuing to grow professionally and personally. I am so excited for what is to come in the next year!

My health and running. I am so fortunate to be able the ones to wake up in the morning and say that I “get” to run. I started out 2016 by impulsively signing up for a half marathon with my dad in February…for a half marathon that was in March. Now, don’t get me wrong, up until that point I had been running. I have always wanted to run a half marathon but didn’t have the confidence in myself to think I could do it – so what better way to do it than to just sign up on a whim? Right? …Besides the fact that I had never ever ran more than 6-7 miles in my life. 🙂 I talk about this a little more here. After this half marathon, I ended up hurting my IT band and was out of running for a good 3-4 months, I think. This is hard for someone that likes to be as active as I do. I recovered finally, and have since then stuck to shorter races and increasing my speed – which led me to my 5K PR in October! My whole point of this little rant is that I am SO fortunate that I get to get up everyday and do something that I enjoy and am healthy enough to do.

Family. I have always been close to my parents and my sister, but I think as I have gotten older the closer we have become. Especially being 5 hours apart and the fact that I don’t get to see them as often as I would like, I really try to call and text them more than I would have in the past. They have been the best support system through everything and am so fortunate for them! BUT breaking news – my sister is moving to ATL in a week!

There are many more other things that I was thankful for this year, but I will leave it at that. 🙂

I hope everyone had a great New Years! I will be sharing a “New Years/2016 Reflection” post this week, but wanted to go ahead and share my round up of outfits for this past week. Although I do love shopping, I unfortunately do not have all the money in the world so I often times have to work with what I have. However, I often do splurge on different key items that I can wear mix and match and wear multiple different ways.

My recent splurges have been shoes – oops. In my defense, two of them can be worn for work (I was lacking in my winter work shoe department). The first pair are the Steve Madden Saudy Over the Knee Boots. I received a black pair of Steve Madden OTK boots last year for my birthday and could not get enough of them. These new pair however, are not quite as OTK as I had hoped they would be, but I still like them just the same.

The second pair are these Franco Sarto Alysia Pumps in nude. These also come in black and burgundy and I am practicing all forms of self control in order to make myself not go back to buy them all. These are some of the most comfortable heels I have owned and the price tag isn’t too bad either!

Lastly, I purchased these Vans Classic Sneakers on a whim the week of Christmas from Nordstrom. My main motive behind this purchase was that I didn’t really have any ‘casual’ shoes to wear during the winter besides boots. I mean I am not opposed to wearing workout clothes and running shoes all of the time – but sometimes you just want a casual cute outfit to run errands in. These shoes are PERFECT for that. I have loved pairing them with many different outfits. It is crazy how much you can change an outfit just by changing the type of shoe you are wearing.

Around the holiday’s people often have a hard time sticking to their workout plan – this can be due to travel, lack of motivation (hello, cookies) and quite frankly people are just busier during this time period. I was lucky enough to travel to my parents house for the holidays – which is actually one of my favorite places to run, which works out in my favor. Atlanta is full of hills so it is always a nice change of scenery when I get to go to the lowcountry and always try to get in a few runs while I am home. Circuit work outs are also some of my favorite ways to get a work out in when you are short on time/don’t have a lot of equipment – most can be modified (i.e., if you do not have access to weights, substitute another exercise that doesn’t include weights).

Here are my work outs for the Christmas/New Years week:

Sunday December 25: Christmas Day! Rest Day

Monday December 26: Run 3.36 miles, 30:29 min, 9:04 pace. This run was in my hometown, which means no hills!!

It is no secret that I enjoy working out and running. I never would have considered myself a “runner” in the past. I only considered people runners if they were involved in a cross country or track team or if they had lists upon lists of races and PR’s under their belt. I have only ran in two real races in my running career but have been running for probably about 6-7 years now. As the years have gone on and more recently after my half marathon in March 2016 and the 5k I just ran, I have thought about all of the hard work and time I have put in – I think it would be silly to not consider myself a runner.

Growing up, my dad was always a major influence in my life especially when it came to running. He was in the Marine Corps and running became a big part of his life, not just for PT but just as an enjoyable hobby and way to stay fit. He has ran in numerous marathons, half marathons and I can’t even begin to imagine how many 5k’s. Now he doesn’t just ‘run’ in these races, he actually runs pretty competitively in them and places in his age group. Like he literally has a shrine of all of his awards in one of the rooms of my house growing up. (I can only hope to have one of those myself one day).

Back in February, I was home one weekend and we got to talking. At this point I had been talking about doing a half marathon for almost a year and never had the courage to sign up. Simply because I thought it was physically impossible for me to run 13.1 miles. My dad and I motivated each other and we ended up signing up for the half that night – which was on March 21. Yes, it was a little over a month until the big day – not sure how smart that was, but it all worked out. My dad ran with me the entire time (he could have completely left me in the dust but was nice 🙂 ). We finished in 2 hours and 1 minute. Our goal was 2 hours or less…so ALMOST reached our goal, but there is always next time. But the feeling I had when we were finished was unbelievable – I was so excited to get that finishers medal! Besides the fact that I really messed up my IT Band, it was a great experience. I learned so much about my will power and strength during those two hours – we didn’t even stop once throughout the race and boy it was hard, but I did it.

I think once you race once, you want to continue on with it. I was bummed that my IT band was messed up and I was out of running commission for probably about 4 months after the half. Once I was able to run pain free, I was ready to get back into it. My dad runs in a race in my hometown, the Beaufort Shrimp Festival 5k and I decided I was going to run in it this year. Joel had recently started running (courtesy of the motivation of his new running watch) and so we set a goal to run in the race together. I had already been running 2-4 miles so I didn’t really need much training as far as the distance goes but what I now wanted, was to get faster.

Since I started running year my average pace has always been around 9:00 – 9:45 minutes and have been determined to get this time down. I started with doing interval training on the treadmill, I would walk for 2 minutes and sprint for 1 minute. But I think the thing that actually helped me the most – was pushing myself. When I would go for shorter runs, I would mentally push myself to run faster. I realized that my body could handle it, it was just my mind that had gotten so comfortable in my pace that I never really made myself go faster.

Throughout my training, I tried running a few 5k’s at ‘race pace’ and my best time ended up being around 25-26 minutes. A week or so before the race, Joel asked me what goal time I wanted to aim for to finish in. I honestly said that I didn’t know because I didn’t know what my body could physically do. I would have been happy with 25-26 minutes.

Race day came and Joel and I completed the race in 24:08 – that is an average pace of 7:43. I don’t think I have ever ran this fast in my life. And I will not lie, it did not feel good. The race included a bridge, which I thought I would be very prepared for because I had been training in Atlanta with a lot of hills. Starting out on the bridge was great but coming back was not as easy. About .75 into the race Joel told me that we probably needed to slow down because our average pace was about 7:45 – I literally could not believe this! There was no way I was running this fast, I felt GREAT. But took his advice and slowed down. We ran more on the flat land out and back to the finish. About .50 from the finish we had to go up the bridge again – at this point, the air was so humid and I was running so quickly that it was getting hard for be to breathe. Joel kept asking me if I was okay – to which I quickly responded “SHUT UP, stop talking to me” and toughed it out and finished the race. I was so excited to see the time on the timer!

The point of this whole speal is to believe in yourself and the things you are capable of. Your body is capable of so many things physically, it is just the mental aspect that keeps us from reaching our full potential. My experience with running has really boosted my confidence in my strength and abilities. Not only in running, but in every day life. You never know what you are capable of until you try. I have lived most of my life “in the comfort zone”. It takes some pushing to get out of that zone, but boy it feels good.